HAVANA, Cuba - THE 47-year-old resolution barring Cuba from joining the Organisation of American States (OAS) may have been repealed by the body on Wednesday (June 3), but the nation has stated that it has no intention of joining the “political corpse”.

Despite US Secretary of State Hilary Clinton stating prior to the voting session that “no consensus” had been reached that would allow Cuba back into the OAS, the US surprisingly reversed its stance during the vote and elected to repeal the ban. 

In a statement issued after the 39th General Assembly of the OAS in Honduras, Cuba officially called the decision “a major victory for Latin America and the Caribbean and also for the Cuban people”.

However, Cuba’s National Assembly Speaker Ricardo Alarcon said that the OAS’ action did not alter “what Cuba thought yesterday, the day before yesterday and today”.

The change in the United States’ position came after immense pressure from Latin American countries to amend what some of the member countries referred to as “a mistake”. 

“If we were to leave this place without rescinding the decision of 1962, [the countries of Latin America] would...become complicit,” Honduras President Manuel Zelaya warned during the opening of the General Assembly. 

Though the ban on Cuba was repealed, the OAS still demanded that the country accept the democratic principles and electoral mandates that are the “cornerstone” of the body’s charter.

“Cuba will not return to the OAS tomorrow, nor the day after. It will still take a long time,” OAS Secretary General Jose Miguel Insulza was reported as saying after the decision was taken. 

Officials of the US stated that they were glad a consensus could be reached to remove the impediments to Cuba eventually being reintroduced, while still being firm that Cuba must introduce democratic reforms if it hopes to join the body.